Government Operations Committee on Sept. 12th, 2024

Evidence of meeting #137 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was residence.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

Purchase of the Official Residence of the Consul General in New York

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Thomas Clark Consul General of Canada in New York, United States, Consulate General of Canada in New York

Clerk of the Committee Mr. Marc-Olivier Girard

12:55 p.m.

Liberal

Majid Jowhari Liberal Richmond Hill, ON

Thank you.

I just take issue with the point. Not every member of this committee is of the same opinion as Mrs. Kusie, so—

12:55 p.m.

Conservative

Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB

Which standing order is he citing in this point of order?

12:55 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Kelly McCauley

Mr. Genuis, please let him finish.

Are you finished, Mr. Jowhari?

September 12th, 2024 / 12:55 p.m.

Liberal

Majid Jowhari Liberal Richmond Hill, ON

Yes. I just wanted it to be on the record. The Liberals are not of the same opinion as Mrs. Kusie.

12:55 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Kelly McCauley

I appreciate that.

We're going to suspend for a few moments so we can do a voice check for Mr. Hardie.

1 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Kelly McCauley

We are back. Thank you for your patience.

Mr. Hardie, the floor is yours for five minutes.

Please, go ahead, and welcome to OGGO, sir.

1 p.m.

Liberal

Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

As a fellow recovering broadcaster, Mr. Clark, I think it's always worthwhile to look at the current situation and then look for normative information. Is this new? In fact, it isn't.

I want to quote a 2010 media report at a time when we were trying to recover from the financial collapse. The report said as follows:

Federal spending on Canadian embassy properties and diplomatic residences abroad has soared 430 per cent since Stephen Harper's Conservative government came to power on a promise to rein in the diplomatic decorators.

After years of trying to move from owning embassies to leasing them, Foreign Affairs is now building a number of new ones, including in Moscow ($8.3 million), Damascus ($6.4 million), Prague ($4.8 million), Dhaka, Bangladesh ($4.2 million), and Stockholm ($4 million).

The media report went on to say:

Construction of a new embassy in Pakistan has already cost more than $7 million just for the land and preliminary plans.

The largest single embassy project detailed in the public accounts [in 2009] was in Kabul, as Canada [prepared] to withdraw from its combat mission in Afghanistan and expand its civilian presence there.

Spending on the project in the past year—

That means in 2009.

—topped $20 million, including $9 million for renovations, $11 million to buy property and another $1.4 million to clear it of possible landmines.

This is kind of the history of what has gone on in the past.

Next to that, the situation in New York in this age of rage, as we're witnessing this morning, seems to be quite mild, so I want to turn back to you, Mr. Clark, to talk about the importance of the efforts that Canada makes.

We saw U.S. protectionism under President Trump, and it's not out of the question that we may see more protectionism, or at least moves in that direction, under whatever administration we have after November.

Can you talk about the value and the depth and scope of building the relationship and why perhaps operating out of a “no-tell motel” somewhere in the precinct of New York City wouldn't necessarily send the right message to the people we're trying to reach?

1 p.m.

Consul General of Canada in New York, United States, Consulate General of Canada in New York

Thomas Clark

Thank you for the question.

One of the ways to explain that is to take a look at the five states that I am responsible for. Canada is the number one customer for all of those five states. In other words, we buy more from these states than the other three buyers combined—Japan, China, and France and the European Union. We are extraordinarily important to these states, because about 70% of the stuff we send down to the United States also ends up as inputs into American products. We are very closely integrated.

I think the challenge for Canada is to continue to talk to American legislators of either party and say that we have become so integrated trying to separate that would be not only hugely costly and almost impossible to do from a regulatory point of view but also dumb, quite frankly, because it would hurt both Canada and the United States.

We're entering into an era now—and this is what I often say—when the route for the Americans to achieve their goals and what they want to do runs right through Canada, and for Canada to achieve our goals, our road runs through the United States.

It is no longer a question of “buy America” or “buy Canada”; it should be “buy North America”. We have to be thinking in terms of resilient supply chains. We have to be thinking in terms of the next time the world gets knocked down by a pandemic or a war. When all of these things are possible, we need to have supply chains that can be accessed within a couple of hours, because we're literally just up the road. We have in Canada the materials that are so necessary for the next phase of the global economy. We're in a terrific position in this country. It's a question of seizing the opportunities that are there, and that is really the bulk of our work, regardless of the outcome of the American election.